


Parental Stand-Ins in SPN

by yourlibrarian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s02e01 In My Time of Dying, Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, Gen, Meta, Parents, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing that struck me about the hospital scene between Dean and Castiel in On the Head of a Pin, which I think many have mentioned, is how Dean was likening Castiel's role to John's when he tells him not to disappear, leaving just cryptic remarks behind.  Dean felt betrayed by that act of John's, and I think he felt betrayed by Castiel in this episode.  Castiel didn't literally send Dean back to hell, but he did put him back there mentally.  And both he and John have asked Dean to perform tasks that are unknowable and likely to result in failure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parental Stand-Ins in SPN

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted March 26, 2009

[impulsiveanswer has written](http://impulsiveanswer.livejournal.com/1785.html) a terrific meta on John's continuing influence in the series. In it she hits on several things I'd been thinking about myself. Rather than repeat any of it, I'd like to use it as a jumping off point to looking at the lingering influence of both parents in SPN. 

One thing that struck me about the hospital scene between Dean and Castiel, which I think many have mentioned, is how Dean was likening Castiel's role to John's when he tells him not to disappear leaving just cryptic remarks behind. Dean felt betrayed by that act of John's, and I think he felt betrayed by Castiel in this episode. Castiel didn't literally send Dean back to hell, but he did put him back there mentally. And both he and John have asked Dean to perform tasks that are unknowable and likely to result in failure. Dean had no idea how to protect Sam from himself, and still doesn't. He also has no idea how to set things right with the seals. In either case, his failure results in a kind of apocalypse.

John was the vessel through which Dean ended up in that hospital bed in IMToD. It was involuntary, of course, he was possessed, but someone else was working through him. Similarly, by not questioning his own "orders" Castiel put Dean through needless trauma, both mental and physical. Both of them were indirectly responsible for breaking Dean and then leaving him with terrible burdens. 

However, it wasn't just Dean's hospital chat with Castiel that was reminiscent of John. Sam and Castiel's confrontation was just like Sam and John's in IMToD. Sam insists Castiel's duty is to Dean, and demands a miracle of him. Sam does the same with John, demanding that he save Dean: 

"The doctors won't do anything, then we'll have to, that's all. I don't know, I'll find some hoodoo priest and lay some mojo on him."  
"Dean is dying, and you have a plan! You know what, you care more about killing this demon than you do saving your own son!"

Sam also swears at Dean's bedside that as long as Dean continues to fight, Sam will keep trying to help him. That still seems to be true. Sam is trying to keep Dean with him, keep him fighting, going forward rather than looking back, and to help him. Surprisingly, two years and change later, both brothers are in a very similar position to where they were before, even though it seems as if so much is now different. And both seem willing to replay their history with Castiel in John's place.

Although one could suggest that there have been various substitute father figures to Sam and Dean since John's death, I really don't see any of them having the same effect on both as John had. And this is because no one else has ever been recognized as an authority figure by Sam and Dean. Bobby is the best example. Although both Sam and Dean have a powerful loyalty to him, and he has, in several ways, played a supportive role for both, he does not echo John Winchester in their relationship. An older, respected figure, an uncle even, but not a father. 

I think it is no coincidence that Dean tells Castiel he has disappointed both their fathers. On the one hand, Castiel is being set up as following the Winchesters in their journey. Each of them began their new lives with a loss of innocence and hope, embodied by the dying figure of a blond in white. But I also see Castiel as the vessel through which a paternal role plays out. Castiel has literally given life to Dean, and in that way, brought life back to Sam as well. Ruby may have kept Sam from dying, but it was Dean's resurrection that has been Sam's motivation since. It seems symbolic that Castiel has literally left his mark upon Dean, wiping out almost all other traces of his past except the tie he shares with his brother (the tattoo). Until his latest wounds, theirs were the only traces on his body.

At the same time, with Castiel, Sam and Dean's roles were at first reversed. Dean is rebellious and suspicious of Castiel's goals and motives. Sam is worshipful and ready to fall in line. Perhaps this is because, at some point in his life, Sam began to see God as an alternate authority figure to John. While this father figure had never provided any support, neither had he provided any disapproval. Until now, of course, as Castiel embodies him. Despite Dean's tendency to rebel, there is still a closer bond between Dean and Castiel, and a distance between Castiel and Sam. Rather than this being a difference because of Castiel, I suspect that it is instead a difference in Dean. Had John lived, I think we would have seen the same.

To some degree I see the whole series as an evolution of Dean's role vis-à-vis John and perhaps for Sam too. It's been noted by plenty of people that as the series has gone along, Sam has become more and more like his father, even while he has claimed to be emulating Dean. Of course, his vision of Dean has itself been molded by John. Sam has seen the two as largely in sync, and Dean as a more accessible reflection of their father. But Dean has been on a slow track of independence ever since the start of the series. We discover that, even before we meet them, Dean has been hunting alone. By the end of S1, he is openly disagreeing with John, and in IMToD, we see him taking his father to task for his apparent inaction. Even though his actions in S2 are largely guided by John's orders, including his terrible decision in AHBL2, he is clearly rebelling against them. He states that the order is a burden no parent should lay on their child, that John's deal was wrong and placed another burden on him. In BUaBS he indicates he has no intention of following John's order at all. In S3 we see the depth of his anger at his father, who he blames for his own looming future. But we also see him, in Long-Distance Call, holding out hope that his father will come to his rescue from the great beyond.

It isn't John who does so, it's Castiel. We may never know what, exactly, Dean remembers of that, and given that Castiel would have been in his pure form, it wouldn't have been Castiel's face he would have seen anyway. But through Castiel, Dean can now replay the still unresolved issues he had with a father who had saved him, taught him, given instruction, and been maddeningly unknowable. It'll be interesting to see how this spins out in the episodes to come.

Similarly, what struck me about Sam's blood drinking scene with Ruby in 4.16, were the maternal overtones in it. I have to say, nothing about Ruby and Sam's relationship up until now has struck me that way. But other than a brief moment in Home, we really have no idea what Sam's relationship with Mary would have been like. We have seen Dean, more than once, relating to his mother -- as a child, as he idealized her in adulthood, and also as another person in her own right. But with Sam we have nothing to go on. He has never had, so far as we know, a maternal figure, nor has he seemed to adopt any in the course of the series. Sam seems no closer to Ellen than Dean is, (something exemplified yet again in 4.17, I think). The only person who has really treated him in such a way is Missouri, also, interestingly, in Home. 

But the first time Sam really speaks to Ruby, she tells him about his mother. She also later suggests she is an angel on his shoulder, certainly not the kind Mary probably told him was watching over him, but a suggestive phrase nonetheless. And she has been simultaneously watching over Sam, training him for the road ahead, giving him information, and goading him to take on a role of leadership and responsibility -- one not encumbered by Dean and Dean's choices. Ruby is positioned from the start as both mysterious and rebellious. She has used her wits and her magical knowledge to survive and pursue a future for herself. But she is isolated and longs for alternatives in her life to the choices demons have. She is, in many ways, not unlike Sam, refusing to be pigeonholed for what she is, level headed, brave, and always thinking ahead. 

And Sam's central opponent is not Azazel, who favored Sam in his own way, but Lilith, who, by being positioned in opposition to Ruby, makes Ruby appear loving and supportive. We can be pretty sure Ruby's goals for Sam are not selfless. But Sam's goals aren't all that selfless either. As Dean discovers, Mary and Sam had a lot in common. Both of them kept secrets in order to preserve their own agendas. Both of them wanted to have a different future than the one that seemed laid out for them. 

In thinking of Mary's legacy, I am reminded of the scene in Heaven and Hell where Ruby and Anna are in the backseat of the Impala. Anna was the leader of the angels we have met, a leader of warriors just as Mary might have become. Like Ruby, she is a rebel, breaking away from the future set out for her, pursuing her own goals, and persuading Castiel to think of other possibilities, just as Mary would have done for John had she lived. Anna's treatment of Dean, once she recovers her memories, can be seen as maternal in its own way. She pushes Dean, gently, to reveal his secrets, and gives him the one thing he is desperate for: forgiveness. 

Although Ruby and Anna are obviously different characters, I don't think their behavior need be identical for the theme to apply. John was a different father to Sam and Dean, despite being the same person. Mary would have been a different mother to each. And both John and Mary might have, in a different course of events, had favorite sons, with separate expectations for each. In fact, given the premise of It's a Terrible Life, the whole "what might have been" definitely deserves another look.


End file.
